Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree

His eyes never left her, holding firm on her own. He made no attempt to hide his awareness. The pause he gave, the serious look to his eyes, he knew. Renaultar knew there was something wrong. What held him now was what to do.

Victoria's pause, and the words that followed. It may have sounded nice and dressed up, but he recognized enough of the body language to get a hint. This told him something that was not comforting. Victoria was an excellent liar.

A hard call was on him. There was ever the chance he could be wrong, or right to a far less degree than he thought. If he had indeed overjudged, he would have a lot to lose in relations to Victoria. But if he was right....He could still lose her. There was the chance she would open up to him, but considering her past, or at least what she told him in honesty, she might reject him completely.

Renaultar broke eye contact and leaned back, looking too the table. He couldn't judge her. Not so much on so little. And fact was, she was a mare. Renny couldn't upset a mare just because she had some worries.

"...Alright." He said simply, still looking to the table with a bland expression. While he did not mean any bad, he was terrible when it came to hiding emotions behind words.

"Alright indeed," she echoed reservedly. Like a creature so unfit as to be granted exemption from natural selection, Victoria's persona was an entity so purely contrived that to recover her thoughts was to recognize and detach any awareness of herself; it was to be so moved as to be unmoved.

Her immediate priority was to, by some means, disseminate his unspoken observations. She began by harvesting assumptions made earlier. It would not do should they revel in any topic to which she could truly relate. Renny more so than anypony would be one to derive assumptions from that which she might contribute, and this Victoria would not stand for. It simply exceeded her character to admit any moral obligation to another. She meanwhile remained cognizant of his attraction to the prettied brow and blushing cheek, as well as his innately well-informed yet humble outward being.

Have at her lead, she proclaimed, if it was that which he sought. Good ponies were not so free from binds.

She donned an illusion of concern.

"Thereby exist innumerable things to be said. Say, have you a... significant other?" Victoria inquired with a majestic eye, drawing her smirking muzzle close to subtract from the distance gained in his lean.

The effect was immediat. Renaultar's train of thought derailed in a fiery ball of flame and leveled the town around it.

"Uh? Oh, a significant other?" His mind reeled. While it was technically true he did not have one, there was certainly an other, if not a few of them. One in particular came to mind, but he needed to get out of this first.

"Oh...no...Not really...." He put on a smile and went all shifty eyed on her.

In a moment Victoria's forelegs were draping over his shoulders - displacing her napkin, disrupting the stagnant contents of her wine glass, compromising the candle flame, forsaking the vast starry night - drawing Renny forward with a mare's entire strength. She darted to his lips, capturing them in her own, unhesitant to wrestle; prepared to defeat a struggle. Her generous mane cascaded in satin waves over his spine.

He couldn't object, could he? Did rats deny cheese which stood upon contraptions of death?

Victoria's resting eyelids detracted from her romantic blitzkrieg, imitating passion; her hooves all the while caressed the throat of the stallion whose arteries she so dearly wished to sever.

Renaultar jolted in surprise, offering only a moments hesitation in resistance. Her strength and determination to get her kiss surprised him, and he would not deny her that. He gave in easily to her, surprised to be the one receiving instead of giving the kiss. This only gave him more ideas to her romantic preferences.

He gently pushed back into the kiss, easing the distance and effort she would need to keep the kiss going. If and when the kiss ended, Renaultar would be quick to add in. "I guess I should ask you if you want to go to my place later tonight?"

Snap.

The spring had sprung, the lever had swung, and the spinal column collapsed under the crimsoned metal arm.

She receded tenderly, batting her eyelashes.

"Do indulge me," she reiterated, satirizing a conversation held not too long ago.

Wearing a pacified expression, Victoria neatened her ribbons and rectified her posture. Thus ended her convoluted game: as a carnivore who in attaining fulfillment could sleep soundly, so could the mare now relieve her vigilance; at which point she allowed herself to appreciate the evening. The wine was exquisite. The food was no less delectable. Renny proved to be quite the experienced romantic. If ponies had been staring, she considered, they had by now been recalled to their dinners.

Renaultar had just about forgotten the previous conversation. It still was in the back of his head, loosely tying to his thoughts of what kind of fire was lit under this mare to drive her to such wild pleasures so strongly. Most of his brain was focused on more immediate desires though.

"Well....Once we get there I can...play that piano you wanted to hear, or we could....skip ahead." A blush decorated his cheeks as he smugly grinned.

"S'il vous plaît, officer!" Her chin sank with pretend humility, mirthful smile prevailing.

"This night is young yet, sweet stallion. And younger are we such that there'll be time for a lovely tune, as well as for..." Victoria bore a thoughtful look, inhaling quietly to prolong the suspense. "For what else have you in mind t'do with me."

With that, she busied herself with refilling his wine glass - a gesture which countered her suggestive comments with a demonstration of purer intentions. Moreover, alcohol ensured that he would remain on this impetuous course.

Then, in an equally deliberate manner, Victoria made to redirect their conversation. In this way, the conditions henceforth established would not likely be questioned.

"Are ya' enjoying the meal?" she casually diverted. In all honesty, Victoria hadn't until then cared to identify her entrée. She began wondering if Renny had even done so.

Renaultar was jittery where he sat. Her suggestions playing with his imagination faster than he could think. Without even breaking eye contact, he drank his glass of wine after the pouring was done. Once it was empty he started to shovel in food, being anything but patient.

"Dinner is great!" He managed to say through a few mouthfuls. Renny appeared to be intent on finishing dinner sooner than later.

Renny's initiative elicited another contented smile on her part. His objectives, as were by then made clear, registered as so crass - yet so fundamentally earnest - that Victoria could only answer his enthusiasm with continual gratification.

With a flick of the hoof, Victoria signaled a nearby waiter to package the remnaints of her dinner. Presuming that events were to maintain their trajectory, she would but allow an appropriate amount of time to deposit some final precursory impressions. It first came upon her that the guardpony had somewhere managed to dispell the appeal of free dinners. Immediately, these small hopes were reinstated. Notwithstanding, Victoria reasoned that it would be gracious to at least offer. She decided upon doing so whenever Renny should have his fill, meanwhile sipping her wine with an occupied air and contemplating the night ahead.

Renaultar caught the cue and quickly ate up a fair portion of his food before pushing his plate away. He also waved to the waiter to bring their check. Hardly giving Victoria a chance, he took out the bits needed and put the payment on the table.

"I hope I did not drink too much wine. I never drink alcohol, and am quiet the lightweight." He commented as he counted the bits again. "So, i suppose we are about finished here. My place then?" He looked up to her with a generous smile.

Victoria's chair scraped against the mahogany floor as she momentarily rose to her hooves and collected her possessions.

"By your lead, Renaultar," she answered minimally.

Despite her assurances, Victoria inevitably recognized that evening hours were finite. That being said, she began pondering the matter regarding where might lay their destination. As they exited The Chestnut Tree, some young voice could be heard projecting a childish rhyme.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Chop chop chop chop
The last pony's dead!"

Renaultar was more than happy to get up and escort her out of the restaurant. He began to race about thoughts in his mind as to what song he should play on his piano when he got home. And how to avoid the landladies this time.